And I was [1966/67] into Stockhausen, and I used to make a lot of home tape loops and just send them to friends for, like, a buzz. I remember sayin’ to John once, “I’m gonna do an album of this and call it Paul McCartney Goes Too Far.” And he said, “Yeah, you’ve gotta do it, man!” So I was the one who introduced John, originally, to a lot of that stuff.
(Paul McCartney, interview with Kurt Loder for Rolling Stone, Sept. 1986)
I originally cut it on my farm in Scotland. I went into the studio each day and just started with a drum track. Then I built it up bit by bit without any idea of how the song was going to turn out. After laying down the drum track, I added guitars and bass, building up the backing track. I did a little version with just me as the nutty professor, doing everything and getting into my own world like a laboratory. The absent-minded professor is what I go like when I’m doing those; you get so into yourself it’s weird, crazy. But I liked it.
Then I thought, ‘Well, OK, what am I going to do for the voice?’ I was working with a vari-speed machine with which you can speed up your voice, or take it down a little bit. That’s how the voice sound came about. It’s been speeded up slightly and put through an echo machine I was playing around with. I got into all sorts of tricks, and I can’t remember how I did half of them, because I was just throwing them all in and anything that sounded good, I kept. And anything I didn’t like, I just wiped.
(Paul McCartney, interview with Paul Gambaccini for Rolling Stone, Paul McCartney's one man band, 26 June 1980)
I originally cut it on my farm in Scotland; I did a little version with just me as the nutty professor, doing everything and getting into my own world like a laboratory. The absent-minded professor is what I go like when I’m doing those; you get so into yourself it’s weird, crazy. But I liked it.
You know, I heard a story recently from a guy who used to record with John [Lennon] in New York, and he said that John would get lazy — but then he’d hear a song of mine where he thought, “Oh, shit, Paul’s putting it in, Paul’s working!”
Apparently that was one song that got John recording again. I think John just thought, “Uh-oh, I better get working, too” [beams]. I thought that was a nice story.
(Paul McCartney, interview with Timothy White for Billboard, March 2001)
JOHN: Well, he had a single – it’s on the radio, out here – and I thought that ‘Coming Up’ was great! But I liked the freak version that he made in his barn [more] than that live Glasgow one, you see. I’m – yeah.
HILBURN: The one that’s on the album. The one with the speeded up voices?
JOHN: Yeah, I think that’s – if I’d been with him, I would have said, “Yes, that’s the one,” too, and I thought that the record company had the nerve changing it round on him. But you know, I know what they mean, they want to hear the real guy singing, but I like the freaky one…
<…>
HILBURN: Were you impressed by him in any—
JOHN: Oh, yeah, I was impressed by that record ['Coming Up'] on the air. It immediately made me: “I want to write!” You know, Warren Beatty said that. About movies. “A great movie is one that makes you want to make a movie.” “I wish I’d made that. Shit.” I’d go right out and make it!
HILBURN: Is that a competition with the human being, or a competition with the artist?
JOHN: [pause] I don’t know which it is, but it’s that bit, he said it, and it’s right. When I hear a great record, I immediately want to go out and make it. I thought, “I’ll make one like that.”
(John Lennon, interview with Robert Hilburn, LA Times, 10th October 1980)
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